“I believe in patriotism,” Bertram had said, stubbornly, and that confession of faith, which he would never have stated in Joyce’s “set,” because it was taken for granted as the very air they breathed, seemed to astonish and amuse some of Christy’s friends, as though he had uttered some ancient heresy in an outworn creed.
“Patriotism has been the curse of the human race,” said Henry Carvell, the war correspondent, who had seen more of wars, big and little, than any man in England, and had been a knight-errant of the pen in most countries of the world. A heavily-built, square-shouldered man, with white hair and a ruddy face, he spoke with a kind of smiling contempt for Bertram’s simplicity of ignorance.
“It’s a survival of the old tribal rivalry which replaced the cave-man law when every old ourang-outang defended his lair and his females from all others of his species. ‘This is my patch of earth. I’ve drawn a line with my club. It marks my territory. Cross it if you dare. I’m stronger than you. Yah!’ That’s patriotism. I’ve seen it working out in bloodshed and brutality from the Zambesi to the Rhine.”
Bertram made a violent protest against that line of reasoning.
“I utterly disagree. If you deny patriotism, you rule out human nature and one of its strongest instincts.”
“I don’t deny it,” said Henry Carvell, with a touch of impatience. “I denounce it. What virtue do you see in it?”
“Love of familiar things in life. Loyalty to the ideas of one’s own people, their code of honour and all that. Men will die in defence of those things, in the last ditch.”
“Why die?” asked Christy, grinning at Bertram in a friendly way. “Why get into ditches? Why not talk it out with the other fellow whose ideas, most likely, are exactly the same?”
Hubert Melvin, the novelist, took up the argument. He was a chubby little man with a bald head, a great expanse of brow, and a plump, good-natured face, like Shakespeare without his beard and dignity.
“Our friend, Pollard, is enlarging the definition of patriotism. He seems to be talking about sacrifice for the ideals of life. They reach beyond frontiers. They’re not limited to a particular patch of earth hedged round by jealousy and governed by a small group of rascals calling themselves patriots! Of course men will die for what they believe to be the true faith.”